How Not To Woo A Veela
by ArsenicAngel
Summary: He had assumed all of the absurdity would stop with his birthday... Instead, things only seemed to be getting worse.


**Disclaimer: **This piece of art or fiction is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made, no copyright or trademark infringement, or offence is intended. All characters depicted in sexual situations are above the age of consent.

Lots of love to lorcalon for beta'ing this for me.

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><p>"Draco!" Looking up from the Auror Department's financial report which was splayed open on his desk, the blond wizard met the eyes of his long-time friend Pansy Parkinson. The witch was leaning in his doorway in a pose that looked incredibly uncomfortable, with one hand on her hip and the other propped against the door frame and supporting her head. It looked much more like something he might find on the cover of Playwizard than any casual stance. Of course, that may have also been due to the pair of tall heels that were strapped to her narrow feet, and the lack of any kind of hose beneath the bottom hem of her trench coat.<p>

"Have you forgotten how to knock?" he asked her, arching one narrow eyebrow as she kicked the door of his office closed and flashed him a saucy smile. Assuming that she had some fresh titbit of juicy gossip to share with him, Draco leaned back slightly in his chair, watching the dark-haired witch approach. "All right, Parkinson, what's got you in such a pleasant mood today?"

"Oh, nothing _special_," she trilled in a tone that was entirely too grating, although he wasn't about to say as much. Pansy was notorious for her tantrums, even now as an adult; it was an unfortunate side effect of being an all-too-spoiled only daughter, who always got her own way. "I only wished to give you your birthday present." As she spoke, Pansy withdrew her wand from one pocket of her coat and ran it quickly down along the line of buttons that held it closed. Draco was too busy knitting his brow in confusion at her action to realize what was happening until the coat slid from her shoulders to pool on the floor around her feet.

Pansy Parkinson was naked in front of him.

"Speechless, are you?" the woman purred, taking a step closer to his desk. The sharp click of her heels against the tiled flooring of his office snapped Draco out of his shock and he nearly knocked his chair over as he scrambled to his feet.

"What the bloody _hell_ do you think you're doing, Pansy? Does Nott know you're here?" He was focussing on anything but her nudity; the painted tips of her toes and the one-notch-too-tight strap of her heels above them, the _thankfully_ pulled shades on his office windows, the palm of his hand as he began to rub his temples in frustration.

"Oh, come now, Draco; what Theo doesn't know won't hurt him," Pansy cooed, smiling sweetly as she took another step towards Draco's desk. "Now, don't you want to take advantage of your gift?" He shifted his hand away from his temple to pinch the bridge of his nose, as he pressed his eyes tightly closed and sighed.

"_No_, Pansy, I don't. What I want is for you to put that ruddy coat back on and get the hell out of my office while I Obliviate this conversation from my memory." He could hear the pout sliding into place on her face at his words, although he continued to refuse to open his eyes to look at her. Pansy and her fiancé were a wicked force when it came to practical jokes, but _this_ was pushing the boundaries, even for them.

"Draco," she started, a coaxing undertone to her pleading voice.

"_Out!_" Draco snapped, pointing towards his office door with his free hand and listening for some sound to tell him she was complying. When at last he heard her heels clicking their way across the room and the door rattling slightly on it's frame, Draco peeked his eyes open and heaved a sigh of relief. Slumping back into his seat, the blond rubbed his hand over his eyes with a groan and silently thanked Merlin that he would never have to see that sight again.

"Draco?" He nearly groaned again, thinking that Pansy had returned to flash him yet again under the guise of a birthday present, until he realized that it was a distinctly male voice saying his name. Sliding his hand from over his eyes and using it to massage his temples once again, where a headache had begun to thrum painfully, he noticed Harry Potter standing uncertainly in the his office doorway.

"What is it, Potter?" he ground out, still too frustrated to feel up to dealing with whatever paperwork issue the Aurors were having today. Considering how often one person or other from that department made an appearance in his office expecting to be coached through their paperwork- which usually still managed to be _late_- it was confounding how any of them were qualified for their jobs.

"Well, it's almost lunch time," the wizard in his doorway started, looking down at his hands, which Draco now realized were wringing the folded tops of two very crumpled-looking paper sacks. This had become some strange new habit of the other man's lately, hunting down Draco just before the lunch hour sporting two identical sack lunches and ultimately offering one of them to him. It had been going on for roughly two weeks now, and as strange as it still seemed to him, Draco had begun to expect and even look forward to Potter's constant requests that they share their meal together. Not that he was about to admit as much out loud.

"Yes, Potter, I'm capable of consulting a clock as well," Draco said smoothly, although his tone lacked the malice it used to hold. "If you'll give me a moment, though, I may be able to part with my work long enough to join you again today." The other wizard's face brightened slightly and he flashed Draco a wide grin that seemed impervious to the eye-roll Draco gave him in response. 

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><p>"What the hell is this?" Draco snapped, more out of surprise than anger, as he looked down at the small ball of bright pink fluff that Ron Weasley had thrust into his hands upon entering the lift. The other wizard's face had turned a vibrant shade of red that clashed terribly with his ginger hair.<p>

"Pygmy Puff," he muttered, looking at anything but Draco now and folding his arms over his chest as if to prevent the blond from attempting to return the thing. "Happy Birthday."

"Right," Draco said, returning his gaze to the creature in his hands, as it began quietly purring. It could almost have been cute, if not for being an obnoxious shade of cotton candy pink, not that he was about to admit any of that out loud. "Well, thanks," he added in an effort to fill the uncomfortable silence in the lift. Weasley only offered a stiff nod in return and proceeded to watch him from the corner of his eye, in a rather unsettling manner, for the remainder of the ride to Draco's office on the first level.

Weasley was studying his shoes intently when the lift doors opened to Draco's floor. The blond spared him a brief glance before stepping out of the elevator, half-expecting the other man to stop him, and sighed in relief when the gate rattled closed behind him without another word from Weasley. His relief was short-lived, however, as he made his way towards his office to find his secretary, Susan Bones, wringing her hands and pacing nervously in front of his office door.

"Draco," the witch gasped as she saw him approaching. "I don't know who did it, sir, they must have got in while I was in the loo, but I don't thi-" Draco held up his hand to cut off her rambling, already feeling his migraine returning. The Pygmy Puff had settled on his shoulder in the lift and, apparently sensing his frustration, shifted a little higher and began to purr soothingly.

"Relax and start from the beginning, Susan. What happened?"

"Someone broke into your office," she answered hesitantly, continuing to wring her hands. "There wasn't anyone around, so I slipped off to use the bathroom. I swear, I wasn't gone more than five minutes, and when I came back, your office door was open."

"Did anything look out of order to you?" Draco asked her, stepping past her to poke his head into his office and look around. The witch shook her head and fell in line after him, attempting to peer over his shoulder into the room. "Well, it all appears to be in order. You can go off to lunch," he said after a moment, although his eyes were focussed on something draped over the back of his chair as he shooed his secretary away. Seemingly relieved that he hadn't fired her on the spot, Susan disappeared without any protest and Draco closed his office door.

Cautiously, Draco withdrew his wand from its holster on his forearm and cast a few spells on the object on his chair, only relaxing when each of them confirmed it was nothing dangerous. As he stepped closer to gain a better view, he realized that it was made of what appeared to be some terrible quality, drab grey wool. Furrowing his brow, he lifted the object and held it up, examining the inconsistent hand-knitting with a frown. "Who in the hell thought I would want a snood?" he asked his empty office in a bewildered tone before tossing the thing into the rubbish bin. 

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><p>He had assumed all of the absurdity would stop with his birthday. Instead, the following morning kicked off with an owl rapping at his kitchen window fifteen minutes before he normally would have Floo'ed to work. Recognizing Blaise's tawny owl immediately, he had nearly tripped over his chair in his haste to let it in, half-expecting it to be some urgent notice for an emergency meeting, seeing that anything short of that could have waited until he arrived at the Ministry. The first surprise then, came when Ailey deposited a letter on the table in front of him, plucked a strip of bacon from his plate, and then disappeared again without waiting for any reply. His second surprise of the morning came upon opening the letter.<p>

At first, he thought perhaps Blaise's owl had gone a bit senile and brought the letter to the wrong person. Then, he found his name in one of the lines, followed by a rather unsubtle offer for sexual favours. As though that weren't enough, tucked away at the bottom of the letter was a moving image of two rather crudely drawn stick figures engaged in oral sex.

Draco stared at the letter in shock for a moment before quickly crumpling it in his hands and tossing it to the floor, hoping that one of the house-elves would dispose of it for him. He then rummaged about in the cupboard above the kitchen sink for a bottle of Firewhisky and poured himself a shot before heading for the Floo. If he couldn't afford to skive off entirely, he would at least need that slight bit of help to get through his day, if that letter had been any indication of what was in store for him. 

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><p>By the end of July, he had become entirely fed-up with nearly every person he encountered at the Ministry. Pansy had arrived every day wearing nothing but her trench coat, and continuing to strip it off as soon as she made it through his office door. In fact, she had gone as far as arriving while he was out collecting paperwork from one of the other departments, and he found her laying nude across his desk when he returned. After two weeks of that, he'd learned to tell his secretary to turn Pansy away if she arrived at all, and began ejecting her from his office before her fingers could touch the clasp of her coat when she continued to sneak her way in.<p>

What he had hoped would be a one-off note from Blaise had turned into a series of poems that came multiple times a day. They had quickly gone from at least somewhat subtle offers to blatant requests, followed by pure, graphic fantasies. There was a bit of a bright side to those, however, in the comic relief provided by the man's horrid attempts at illustration. At one point, Draco had spent nearly an hour turning one of the poems this way and that in an effort to make out exactly what the two stick figures were attempting to do before giving up and resigning the paper to the rubbish bin with the rest of them.

Rue, as he had taken to calling her, now had seventeen more Pygmy Puffs in a rainbow of colours sharing her magically enlarged cage. Somehow, Weasley continued to manage slipping off to his brother's shop multiple times throughout the day to purchase a new pet to foist onto him every time Draco stepped into a lift. How the other man _always_ seemed to be out of the office at the same time was beyond him, but Draco was quickly coming to the unsettling conclusion that he was being stalked. Of course, it didn't help that the ginger had taken to making awkward passes at him while handing over the annoying little creatures. By the middle of the month, he had taken to avoiding the lift as much as possible, and finding some excuse to occupy his arms when he was forced to get on.

His office had been broken into at least three times a week for the entire month, and the culprit continued to simply leave another dreadful snood on his desk. They varied in colour from drab beige to a rather obnoxious, neon-rainbow yarn that made his eyes ache to look at. Not one of them was well-crafted, or even the same size, upon comparison; a fact that didn't surprise him too much when he finally discovered who was responsible. It took quite a few early mornings hiding out behind his secretary's desk, more than three hours before his shift at the Ministry usually would have begun, waiting for whomever it was to come sneaking into his office. Rather than sneaking in, though, Granger had walked confidently up to the door and quickly unravelled Draco's wards, deposited her hand-made gift, and sauntered back out with a gleeful smile on her face.

In truth, the only bright side to these new, strange forms of stress, was Potter continuing to show up in his office door every afternoon. Despite both of them having more than enough gold in their vaults to afford it, the other wizard never once asked him outside the Ministry to visit a café or one of the other restaurants. Instead, he always arrived with two very crumpled-looking paper bags clutched in his hands. After so many days of annoyances, however, and yet another note from Blaise asking Draco to ram his 'throbbing manhood' up the other man's 'gaping arsehole', he found himself reluctantly refusing for the first time since Harry started asking.

"You already have plans, then?" Harry asked, his face falling as Draco finished straightening his desk before rising from his chair. "I'm sorry, I'll just-"

"Harry," Draco said, his voice quiet, yet firm. The dark-haired wizard paused as he turned away, glancing hesitantly at Draco over his shoulder. "I'm unable to go with you because I have a meeting with Severus this afternoon. It's not something that I can reschedule."

"Oh!" Harry seemed appeased by this answer, and even seemed to brighten a bit as he nodded in acknowledgement. "Right, so... Tomorrow then?"

Sighing, Draco shook his head, suppressing the hint of a smile that pulled at his lips. Tomorrow was Harry's birthday, and it certainly said something that the other man was so keen to spend even that day's lunch with him. "Yes, Potter, I'll have lunch with you tomorrow."

"Brilliant!" 

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><p>"It's insanity, Severus." As Draco concluded his ranting explanation of the past four weeks, he took a sip from his glass of Ogden's. His godfather had listened patiently to his slightly raving litany of woe without interruption, staring into his burning fire with only the occasional nod to show that he was listening. "I don't know what's gotten into the lot of them."<p>

"I would think it was obvious, Draco," the older wizard drawled, swirling his own glass in his hand for a moment before taking a sip. "Your twenty-second birthday had just passed; chances are that your pheromone signal has changed to attract your mate... You seem far too surprised by this," Severus added, arching one dark eyebrow as he conjured a handkerchief, offering it to Draco as he coughed and sputtered. The blond man accepted the cloth and held it over his mouth, coughing a few more times until his eyes watered and his throat cleared again.

"Only because of who it's been," Draco rasped, reaching for his glass again to wash down the scratchiness in his throat. "Merlin's balls, Severus, how is Parkinson or Granger considered a potential mate for me?"

Severus nearly laughed as he drained the last of his drink, replacing his empty glass to the small table beside his chair. "Relax, Draco. I imagine, given your interest in cocks over bints, that the two of them were more...accidental victims than intended targets." Draco seemed to relax a fraction at his words, breathing a sigh of relief as he settled back into his chair.

"Severus," he said quietly, eyes focused on the fire as his brows knitted together with a hint of concern. "Potter started in a few weeks before my birthday..."

This time, Severus allowed himself a chuckle, leaning slightly over the arm of his chair to pour a fresh measure of Ogden's into Draco's glass. "In that case, Draco, I think it's safe to assume at least _his_ strange behaviour has been genuine." 

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><p>"Draco?" Harry looked up at the blond man standing in the doorway of his office, furrowing his brow slightly in confusion. Draco flashed him a confident smile and held up a gift-wrapped box in his hand as he stepped into the room.<p>

"I seem to recall today is your birthday, Harry," he said, crossing the carpeted floor quickly and setting the gift upon the other wizard's desk. Harry's eyes darted from his face to the gift and back, his expression gradually easing from one of confusion to one of glee.

"You remembered that?" he asked, reaching out to snatch the gift up off his desk and immediately tearing into the paper. Draco chuckled as he took a seat across from the other man, watching in amusement as Harry removed the lid from the unmarked box beneath the paper and paused. Gently, Harry lifted the beautiful, white peacock feather-quill from its cushion of crushed velvet and examined it with wide eyes for a moment. "This is... too much," he said at last, looking back to Draco's face. "Really, Draco, this is-"

"Consider it the first of many _courting_ gifts then," Draco said smoothly, suppressing the urge to smirk when Harry's cheeks blushed faintly at that. "Allowing me to take you to dinner tonight can be your birthday present."

Unable to help the smile that pulled at his mouth then, Harry nodded. "What time should I be ready?"


End file.
